


Supposed to be

by orphan_account



Series: Drabbles [1]
Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Break Up, Drabble, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-12
Updated: 2015-11-12
Packaged: 2018-05-01 08:37:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5199341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carmilla was always supposed to leave. Laura figures that's how the story goes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Supposed to be

**Author's Note:**

> Trying to get past a bout of writers block so I can finish the conman au.

Carmilla was supposed to run away.

Laura figures that’s how the story goes.

Because Carmilla has the weight of three hundred years on her shoulders. She’s so old and Laura can see the cracks in her smile when they dance in the kitchen. Carmilla’s hands are liars, her face should be drawn, but instead is painted with eternal youth and Laura hates how Carmilla is a perfectly stone sculpture.

Carmilla was supposed to leave silently, packing that tattered green backpack she has in the bottom of their wardrobe and escaping.

Sometimes, in the middle of the night, Laura is counting the seconds that pass with the weight of everything and she feels Carmilla shift, disturbing the darkness ever so slightly. She tenses, helpless, being pulled out to sea on a current too strong to fight, drowning slowly in an ocean of fear. But then Carmilla goes back to sleep and it’s over.  

Except it’s not.

Because Carmilla has a guilt complex the size of Jupiter and Laura wants nothing more than to whisper to her that it’s okay. But Laura is a below average height human and Jupiter is so big and she doesn’t know if she’s ready for space travel. Looking at the stars is completely different from touching them, she discovers.

Laura plans out Carmilla leaving in the same way she plans a trip to the grocery store. It won’t be as bad as her mom, she thinks, because she’ll have time to prepare for Carmilla, like tensing before a punch to the stomach. But it’ll still destroy her.

Scratch that, Laura plans out Carmilla leaving like an expiration date. She breathes hardly. Carmilla kisses her and it feels like heaven, but Laura can see the sand timer running out in her head so she pushes back harder before she can suffocate in the pouring grains.

Perhaps Carmilla notices something is off. It’s in the crooked smile and the furrowed brow when she thinks Laura isn’t looking. It’s in her perfect porcelain features, fragmenting ever so slightly in the silence at the dinner table. It’s in the fragility of her voice when she utters Laura’s name into the darkness as Laura pretends to sleep.

Carmilla is cracking slowly and all Laura can think is _good_. She won’t have to deal with the anxious anticipation anymore, Carmilla can leave and they can get on with their lives.

Because Carmilla _will_ get over Laura. Time isn’tmeaningful to Carmilla and she avoids death like she avoids the common cold and talking to people. All the time in the world falls onto Carmilla and Laura has to face the ugly truth that she only has a limited time to get over her. So the sooner her heart gets broken the better really.

Because Laura plans out this story like she plans out her life, unsure and wobbling on unused legs. The only certainty she has ever known is death, and she’s not going to give that up for Carmilla.

Call her selfish if you want.

Time goes on, a month, two months. Every second the water rises onto Laura’s paralysed body and she can do nothing but watch and wait. The time that means nothing to Carmilla is slowly killing Laura and it’s a dynamic they can’t work out.

There’s a shift in the weather and it’s making their apartment gloomy. Curtains seem to always be pulled across windows and all of the colour has escaped the walls in search of somewhere more interesting. Carmilla is trying to fix it. Desperately she attempts to repaint the walls with vibrant colours only to watch them fade to grey again. It’s no one’s fault.

Ignorance is bliss, but Laura can’t ignore the ticking of the antique grandfather clock that they bought from a dodgy auction down the road when they moved in. The bliss from ignorance is Carmilla’s warmth and even then her chest constricts when she thinks of Carmilla leaving.

(Carmilla _will_ leave. It is almost as certain as death.)

Time unpicks them.

In the middle of the night, Laura feels Carmilla shift and stills for a second, her heart rapidly pounding from her chest to her throat. There’s a weird feeling to knowing that everything is ending, like watching the last seconds of a bomb tick down having accepted that you don’t know how to stop it. Laura has long since accepted that she can’t save everyone, her relationship is just another thing she watches fall through her fingers.

Carmilla snores a little, turning over and slinging her arm across the bed. Sighing with relief, Laura smiles sadly, before walking out the door, Carmilla’s tattered green rucksack thrown over her shoulder.

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me @ piegodess.tumblr.com


End file.
